French artist Thomas Mailaender expands our perceptions of what photography can be, with experimental, at times extreme, printing practices that have included sun-burning images onto exposed skin.

Drawing from what he terms his ‘Fun Archive’, a growing collection of amateur photographs amassed from the internet, Mailaender primarily works from found photography. As the images are continuously re-appropriated and removed further and further from their source, new readings and contexts are layered through the work. Responding to 21st century image culture, Mailaender offers bold juxtapositions, often expanding photographic practice across media to include sculpture and performance.

This event is part of the Whitechapel Gallery’s talk series Prix Pictet Conversations on Photography, which provides a platform for leading contemporary photographers from around the world to discuss and present their practice.

Thomas Mailaender’s has exhibited widely in exhibitions such as Do Disturb (Palais de Tokyo in Paris, 2017), Iconoclasts: Art Out of the Mainstream (Saatchi gallery, London, 2017-8), Performing for the Camera (Tate Modern, 2016), Night Climbers of Cambridge (Festival Images in Vevey, Switzerland, 2014), From Here On (Rencontres d’Arles, 2011), Paris Photo, and will be exhibiting in the Back to the Future show at FOAM museum in Amsterdam in the coming year (19 January – 28 March 2018). His work is held in public collections worldwide such as the Musée National de l’histoire de l’Immigration, Paris, FNAC (Fond National d’Art Contemporain), Paris and MONA museum, Tasmania.